By Newsmata
Erudite constitutional lawyer and senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mike Ozekhome, has weighed in on the controversial proclamation of emergency rule in Rivers State on Tuesday by President Bola Tinubu, stating unequivocally that no constitutional provision, statute or any known convention grants the President the “imperial and dictatorial authority to single-handedly dissolve the structures of an elected state government”.
The human rights advocate noted that “That may probably have been in the locust days of military juntas; but Nigeria is today not under the firm grip of a military dictatorship”.
Giving his perspective on the burning national issue in a well researched article titled, ‘President Tinubu Cannot Legally Remove An Elected Governor of a State’, the professor of Law argued that a state of emergency does not and cannot “translate to a civilian coup d’état, executed by executive fiat through a national broadcast which torpedoed elected structures and whimsically imposed a sole Administrator who would now illegally receive Rivers State allocations from the Federation account under section 162 of the Constitution contrary to the very judgement of the Supreme Court which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu pretended to be executing”.
Defending his position, Prof. Ozekhome said,”Let me be very clear about this for historical purposes:
“President Tinubu clearly lacks the power, authority and vires to suspend democratic structures, especially the removal of Governor Sim Fubara and the Rivers State House of Assembly members. His act constitutes nothing but a gross constitutional aberration and a most illegal, unlawful, wrongful and unconscionable step that has the potential of imploding Nigeria at large, and Rivers State in particular.
“The Constitution must stand hallowed, unassaulted, or democracy will fall and peris”.
While highlighting the constitutional provisions guiding such a decision, Ozekhome insisted that “None of the factors envisaged in Section 305 of the Constitution has occurred at all to warrant the steps taken by the president”, stressing that “In the present scenario, the bi-camera National Assembly had not even first met, discussed and approved the president’s emergency proposals before he acted.
“He did it in advance (in futuro) in expectation of rubber-stamping by a pliable and malleable NASS. I hereby call on the NASS to show class for once by roundly rejecting the President’s unconstitutional act of first declaring a state of emergency before its approval and also for acting ultra vires by accompanying it with the suspension of elected democratic structures.
“This will place them on the right path of history. Otherwise, they should be prepared to be damnified by history”.
He also emphasised that the declaration of a state of emergency “does not translate into a dissolution of governance structures within the affected state.
‘Under a state of emergency, the Governor, as the chief executive of the state, remains in office, whilst the institutions of government at the state level continue to function, unless expressly provided otherwise by law. There is no such law in Rivers State or at the national level”.
According to Ozekhome, “The framers of the 1999 Constitution were deliberate in ensuring that the power to declare a state of emergency is not an avenue for executive overreach or imperious excursion into the realm of narcissism or ego trip.
“While the President may take extraordinary measures to maintain peace and order, those measures must align with the provisions of the Constitution. There is no provision howsoever, express or implied, that allowed President Tinubu to remove a sitting Governor and state House of Assembly legislators under the thin guise of emergency powers.
“There is no war in Nigeria. There is no threat of external aggression or invasion either across the country or in Rivers State. All that we have seen have been tussle for power between the Governor and the House of Assembly and the courts had already waded in with the Governor declaring he would comply with the Supreme Court’s judgement.
“A mere blow up of oil pipes in two communities by unidentified persons certainly does not constitute a war or external invasion situation”.
The fiery lawyer further submitted that “Not a few Nigerians have argued quite plausibly, too, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent declaration of emergency rule in Rivers State and the suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his Deputy, and the State House of Assembly was not purely a matter of law and order, but an act driven by political expediency and personal indignation.
He expressed dismay that while President Tinubu “finds himself presiding over a nation teetering on the brink economic hardship, rising insecurity, public angst, and deep-seated political fractures, yet, rather than confront these crises headlong with statesmanship, his administration appears to be flexing emergency powers in a manner that raises more questions than it answers”.